Wise Company review

Wise Company provides high-quality, long-lasting food which is perfect for emergencies or even just a weekend camping.

Our Verdict

If you’re looking to stock up on tasty, high-quality food which with a variety of sizes and food types on offer, Wise Company is our top pick.

For

Caters to a variety of dietary needs and allergies

Excellent taste

Food lasts up to 25 years

Against

More expensive than some other options

You never know when disaster is going to strike, and when it does you never know how long it will last. That’s why Wise Company offers food which lasts for up to 25 years and a huge range of options to help you feel in control when the worst happens. This, and the fact that it provides great-tasting and well-contained meal options for up to 4320 servings, makes it our top pick of the best food storage companies. Although Wise Company offers full kits for when you need to enter survival mode, you can also buy smaller portions for when you are going on a camping trip or rotating through your food storage. We sampled many different brands for our long-term food storage reviews and while many were quite good, Wise stood out, especially for its excellent taste and texture.

Wise Company has a great site with transparent pricing and nutritional ingredients fully broken down. It uses the best containers for long-term storage and there are gluten-free and organic options, as well as the guarantee that all meals are made with high-quality U.S. ingredients. This may account for why you can expect to pay a bit more with Wise than other sites, but we think it’s worth it for the peace of mind and quality on offer, whether you're looking for survival food-storage kits, emergency food kits or the essentials, such as individually packaged meats, fruits and vegetables.

Wise Company offers food kits for a variety of dietary needs, catering to vegetarians and the gluten-free. (Image credit: Wise Company)

Wise Company review: What’s on offer?

Wise Company understands that people use long-term food storage for several different situations. While the industry is widely seen as one focused on disaster relief and emergency preparedness, a large part of the service is dedicated to short-term meal preparation.

The company's grab-and-go meals and outdoor food kits are a fast solution for weekend camping trips or money-saving meals. The grab-and-go kits come packaged in several different options. You can get separately packaged freeze-dried meat in 60-serving increments, 120 servings of breakfast and so on. The outdoor food kits have meals sold separately and are purchased a la carte.

You can make a modest or large investment in dried food storage. The company offers combinations ranging from a 72-hour supply to a 12-month supply of food storage. Under the proper conditions, the food lasts for up to 25 years. The kits come in the best possible packaging for survival food – space-saving, squared, stackable bins that do not require any special shelving or storage.

We are impressed that the Wise Company gives you multiple options for emergency food storage and is focused on creating great-tasting items as well. The freeze-dried fruits are packaged with different sauces, such as caramel, while the vegetables are packaged with various sauces like cheese, butter and mushroom sauce. This is done to maximize flavor and to add additional calories to meet your recommended daily intake.

Wise Company even sells seeds for growing a garden – to prepare for or to recover from a natural disaster – but it lacks the dehydration or canning supplies to help you preserve the food you grow.

Wise Company offers a full nutritional breakdown of all the food they offer. (Image credit: Wise Company)

Wise Company review: Dietary needs

Wise Company owns and operates its own manufacturing facility. According to the company, its facility is soy- and nut-free. These are important for those with food sensitivities and allergies. Of the other food-storage companies we reviewed, Wise's website is very easy to search and locate an assortment of gluten-free foods.

Some competing food storage sites had a few items here and there but you really have to hunt them down or ask specifically for gluten-free fare. Wise offers a decent selection of vegetarian food as well, including freeze-dried fruits and vegetables, and a few other items that are specifically labeled as vegetarian so you know what you are getting.

Wise Company review: Water

Wise Company offers very little in the way of potable drinking water, and that is a definite drawback. Having some drinking water on hand is important for emergencies, because you never know if there will be water you can purify in the event of a natural disaster or emergency. It does offer a good selection of water storage and water-purification equipment, though. The Wise Company offers clean water boxes, water-filtration bottles, desalination treatment and an emergency stove to boil water.

Wise Company review: Website

An emergency food calculator on the Wise Company site assists you in planning how many meals or how much bulk food to purchase and how much you want to spend on them.

The Wise Company's Be Wise blog is one of the most expansive we've seen for a food-storage service. It offers great tips on how to prepare for a disaster as well as DIY storage and gardening tips. We are impressed with the quality of these articles and the possible lifesaving information they provide, especially since they're quick reads.

The site also has a standard FAQs page that gives basic information about proper storage and advice on how much food is needed to feed a family. In case you have further questions, the company has a helpful, knowledgeable support staff available by phone that won't pass you off to several operators before your question is finally answered. If you don't want to call the company, you can use the contact form on its website or find the company's profiles on Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter.

Should you buy from Wise Company?

Many of the companies in our comparison have excellent-quality food and a vast selection of it. The Wise Company edges out the competition, though, by also making excellent food for those with specific dietary restrictions, and by making that food easy to find.

This company takes all of the guesswork out of establishing long-term food storage for your family, with a calculator, lots of educational material and knowledgeable employees that are easy to reach. The food comes packaged in a logical way and can last for a quarter of a century, so you feel confident in the face of any catastrophe.